I've been burgled!
I visited everyone's pal, Russell tonight. Russell lives 4 miles away. So I figure, I'll drive to his place. I haven't driven anywhere for at least a week, I've been walking (as I did to get food the day I helped someone cross the street!) or riding my bike [side note about the bike: I got a bike. I was thinking of being maxlike and hoping I wouldn't be lukelike with it.] The car was in disarray. At first, I chalked this up three ways: a) It's rarely kept neat and clean inside, b) I just moved, so there's likely to be junk not familiar as car-junk inside, and c) I haven't been in here in over a week. But this little ball of shrinkwrap plastic I intended for a Spider-Man-like webbing effect was on the floor. Not in the console where it lives. The passenger seat had wrappers on it for some McDonald's sandwiches, and an empty plastic cup. HEY!
In the back seat, containers were opened - a box of computer cables, a box of business cards. I got out and checked the trunk - the toolbox and grip kit were closest to the hatch, along with some clothes. Nothing seemed out of place.
I drove to Russell's, examining further at each stop light. The burglar was either not good at his job, or some combination of considerate and practical. Item Missing: Power Inverter. It plugs into a cigarette lighter and then I can plug in electrical items and run them off the car battery - often an ipod, but a surprising number of kinoflos can run on a little inverter like this - worth $20-30, and gone. But the ipod charging cable, which was plugged into it, was left behind. As were some cheapie speakers I got for on-set work, as was my first mobile phone, which was and is still clipped to the sun visor. All my CDs were still wherever I left them. Ah! The plastic cup! I got it on the set of Zombies Ate My Prom Date when I took home a dinner of jelly beans. It later contained about $4 in loose nickels and pennies from around the last apartment. The burglar took the coins but not the cup. I was worried he stole my little Garindan action figure, but it had merely fallen under the seat. He might have gotten a chip worth $5 at the Venetian in Los Vegas, or that fell on the floor too. He did not take the pirate hat and swords seen here, or the arm covers of our ex-couch, or any of a big stack of sharpies, or my compass.
By chance, I'd taken my digital camera (which was under the pirate hat!) out of the car to take pictures of the apartment and computer. By chance, my GPS receiver had been in the house. My insurance cards and registrations were all left alone. I would, however, have really liked to see the look on the face of the burglar who opened up my glove box looking for valuables and found...GLOVES! Three pairs of warm winter gloves! It's a glove box!
So I'm out a neat $25 item and a few bucks in loose coins. He didn't even touch the compartment where I keep coins (and in the current case, a few bucks of paper money!). Maybe the burglar got spooked by something and aborted the mission early - hence the trash and food wrappers left inside.
It just adds to the recent sense of fracture - moving apartments puts things in disarray and unfamiliarity - moving computers (which, as I'm wont to argue in I'm From The Internet, is the real home) is much the same or worse. I just wonder what else might have changed inside that I didn't notice yet. I'll have to go through the debris carefully, and maybe get the inside cleaned somewhere, since I'm taking it in for work soon anyway.
I think I probably lost more things that I'll miss with the recent dead hard drive, so with this I'm not so much angry as disappointed...but still...
edits: -the windows are fine. Must have had a slimjim or some such thing. -And, this took place in the garage of my building. I should've parked on one of these nice safe streets of hollywood you hear so much about in popular songs of the day. -Russell and his ex roommate both had their cars broken into while in a garage not far from here. At least we all get burgled by burglars with a sense of irony.